Sofa snippets #007
Lions, triangles, style indecision, finishing books and starting new ones, being cooked for, neurospicy introspection and some more travel planning
Hello and welcome to Sofa Snippets, a weekly roundup of bits and bobs from my life and work.
If you’re reading this in your email inbox, it might be too long and you might be prompted to read it on the website. Sorry!
This section is mostly about what my Morning Ink practice has shown me this week, and sometimes other general sketchbook insights.
This week’s Morning Ink has been a bit of a medley, with only really one scene (a cosy armchair), on Tuesday. Multiple patterns, with two full pattern days (triangles on Wednesday and a floral today). There were four trees, six birds, three cats (two of which were lions!), one scene, four patterns and nine cups.
I did not do much else in sketchbooks this weeks, just this little spread in the little A6 sketchbook that’s sat on my desk, done a little bit here and there in between chunks of work.
On Wednesday I wrote a fair bit (for a Morning Ink post, which are generally shorter than most of my posts) about my sketchbook practice. Thursday saw a little bit about feeling like autumn was here (not sure about that today and there’s a 27°C day coming up tomorrow, so we’re probably not quite there yet). Friday I wrote a bit about going out for dinner with Chris. And today I wrote about trying to re-embed some positive habits, but also a lot about my new audio read, which is in Italian, and went on a bit of a language-learning tangent.
(Morning Ink is a section of my publication that goes out daily. It is not automatically switched on for you so, if you want to see those posts whenever they are sent out you’ll need to toggle them on, via Manage Subscription.)
This section is what I’ve been doing illustration business wise - drawing, outreach, and so on.
I have not done a huge amount this week in terms of the illustration business. I haven’t managed to dig into any of the agency briefs that I want to. I think I may have done a teeny bit of sketch brainstorming, but nothing that jumped out and shouted ‘You need to draw me!’ - most of them just whispered ‘I guess you could draw me. Maybe I might come out OK.’ I think perhaps I should have listened to those whispers and just got on with it. As I suspect that’s how to make a consistent living from drawing. Actually keep showing up and creating new work and getting that new work in front of people who might want to buy it. If you sit on your bum waiting to have brainstormed something that jumps and shouts you might well be waiting too long. So over the next three weeks, alongside the increased workload for the educational publishing me (see next section), I will also be showing up and completing at least two new pieces a week to submit to my agency and which will hopefully get into the show.
I did finish (maybe - because there’s a very good chance I will come back to it and make some tweaks, while or after, doing the other two) the first in a three-piece personal collection (tentatively named ‘Giant Cat Houses’) that I started absolutely ages ago.
I think I’m ‘having a moment’ of style/media/process questioning. I really love the background and the trees in this piece. But the building are not feeling quite right now. They feel too neat and flat. I know they’re not remotely neat or flat, and are still a decent distance away from my much flatter vector work, but they also feel like they have less soul, somehow. The background and the tree feel more soulful. And my Morning Ink work feels more soulful still. I have a feeling I may be at one of those transition points where I need to do some more experimental play and find something that pulls in the fountain pen work with the kind of texture I have in the background. I don’t think I want to go fully analogue. And I also don’t want to find a new style/media/process that takes way too long to finish, because I want to be open to those quick turnaround editorial jobs that I see people doing.
I would like to dig deeper into this during that three-week (mostly) gap from educational publishing work coming up, in three weeks. And use my time away for some personal creative exploration. That said, I know myself. And I know that I’m at a very significant risk of expecting to be able to do a metric tonne of creative exploration and writing and drawing and so on, when what I actually need is complete and utter time off. Time off everything.
We shall see. But watch this space next week to hear if I managed to nail at least two new pieces for the agency. (And hopefully you’ll also get to see a snippet or two from them.) And watch this space come October to see if I have found a new… what? process? media combination? style?
This section is about freelancing life, including what I’ve been working on with my educational publishing hat on and just general bits about working from home in a self-employed capacity.
Work this week has mostly been a variety. Finishing off my History copy-edit on Monday (following an extension due to Covid time loss), some Spanish development work, some childcare copy-editing and typesetting, and some final checks and setting up metadata and checking quizzes on the childcare (digital) title, with Friday being mostly about sending out invoices and doing some deep analysis and planning for the upcoming few weeks and deadlines. Which did also show me that I needed to do some work on Saturday. Which I did.
The week came out at just under 30 hours, including the Saturday work. According to my planning, I’m going to need to work around seven-hours day on most weekdays for the next three weeks. I think I have been generous with my time estimates, though, so hopefully some days will come in closer to my preferred 4–5 hours.
But… I then should have almost three weeks close to completely free (including my scheduled time away), so working what is to most people ‘normal hours’ for three weeks so that I can have three weeks off, I think is a very reasonable sacrifice. And so very much better than it has been for many years previously when I would have been working many 10-hour days and somehow still making less than I am now.
This is the culture section - mostly what I’ve been reading, but might also include TV and film and wider culture, too.
I finished reading David Nicholls’s You Are Here and really enjoyed it. I do love his books. I have a very strong tendency to read novels by women, especially in more recent years. I did read more of a mix when I was younger (Stephen King, James Herbert, John Irving, Charles Dickens… um… can’t think of any others, but those four did write a lot of books!). David Nicholls writes the kind of thing and in the kind of way that I feel I find more in writing by women. (Can you sense me trying hard not to be all gender stereotyping and yet still probably managing to, anyway?) He writes about feelings. He writes about the senses. He writes with what feels like incredible insight into the everyday. Everyday life and habits are things that obsess me – hmm… at least in the past decade or so, I am not convinced that they always have.
And I finished listening to Mansfield Park. I honestly can’t remember how many times, or if at all, I have read it since studying it for A Level. I feel I must have read it at least once, because my aunt bought me a beautiful set of hardback Jane Austen books for my 18th birthday and I know that, at least once, I made a point of reading every single one of them, and have a feeling I did that twice. I really appreciated listening to it, anyway. And I felt surprised at how (Is it OK to spoil a classic? I try very hard not to when talking about a contemporary book, but I do work on the assumption that everyone will have read all the classics, which is probably a bit ridiculous) Edmund and Fanny getting together is compressed into this tiny bit at the very end of the book. I also felt like the narrator was almost saying that Fanny and Henry and Edmund and Mary could both had quite happy marriages if things hadn’t gone awry, whereas I was thinking that they absolutely couldn’t, because they were so at odds.
And this morning I started listening to Mi Amice Geniale (My Brilliant Friend) in Italian, using Audible. You can read about my thoughts on this on today’s Morning Ink post.
I am trying to remember what I’ve watched this week (I should really note it down somewhere) and I am not sure. I know I watched the second episode of Wednesday. I know I watched at least three episodes of Only Murders in the Building with Chris. And I know I watched the first new episode of Invasion and one more episode of Too Much. And I know I watched an episode or two of This is Us. I think that might well be it in terms of TV watching. And that’s probably plenty!
I caught up (just about) on The Archers. And I only listened to a couple of podcasts.
I really need a chunk of typesetting (or illustration!!) work so I can listen to more podcasts and audiobooks. I did listen to the two above while doing some typesetting work. About a third of the work I need to do over the next three weeks falls into the category, so hopefully I’ll get a few more podcasts down. I absolutely don’t think I’d be able to listen to the Italian audio book while typesetting, though. So I may default to getting up to date on a bunch of podcasts. Or I might pick a non-fiction audiobook to listen to.
This is the Substack section - Substack posts or publications that I’ve particularly enjoyed over the past week.
Here are a handful of Substacks I enjoyed this week:
I now have index cards, index card holders and removable highlighting tape and sticky notes (the latter is something my sister has been nudging me to get for ages) sitting in my Amazon shopping basket and I think I will buy them today. I think I need to do something about taking notes on the things I’m reading, because I don’t want to only have what struck me at toward the end of a book sitting in my head, or the really big stuff, I want to remember all those little moments of ‘Ooh!’ and ‘Interesting’ and ‘Huh!’. So I think I will try note cards and removable stickies. Because I absolutely cannot write in books. (Except the ones I am definitively studying for exams. At least I did those decades ago when I was doing that.)
This was interesting and in some way concurs with what I have noticed about myself over the years – that I have seasons of productivity and seasons of maintenance. I think the trick is to understand when those are and to know what to do when in each of them. (And another trip that I hope I will learn one day is to be able to find the seasons, or moments, when it’s OK, even essential, to completely and utterly switch off from all aspects of productivity.)
This was just lovely to read (and look at!). I really really love sitting looking through people’s sketchbooks – whether in posts like this, in videos, or actually in person (the latter is by far the most fulfilling). Actually, including my own!
Anyone else obsessed with looking through sketchbooks? Surely there must be a lot of you!
This was really interesting. I am out the other side of the menopause (I’m fairly certain - it’s been over 8 years since my last period and, while I do still overheat quite easily, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a hot flush and my rage has mostly depleted), but I recognise feelings and ways of being from when I was in the thick of it. I do kind of wonder now, what exactly is the next chapter supposed to entail.
I enjoyed flicking through Lena’s posts. Always love finding a new illustrator on here or digging deeper into archives of ones I’ve been following for a while.
And that’s about it, if you don’t include making my whole family take Lindsey Mack’s Neurocomplex Archetype quiz. Because I am obsessed with this stuff. (Note: I have a paid subscription, which I think you need to read much of this – I do still have a few gift subscriptions I can give away, so please do shout if you want one!).
This is the food section - meals I cooked, new food I tried, places I ate out, and other food-related bits and pieces.
I made a nice comforting creamy leeky linguine last Sunday evening. And Wednesday, when I was feeling autumnal, I went for lentil and mushroom bolognese, which I served with linguine on Wednesday and with conchiglie on Friday. I came very very close to putting grated (dairy) cheese on it on Friday, but went with my rocket and pine nuts instead. I feel like I will pivoting, very slightly, soon to eating a ‘predominantly plant based’ diet rather than being fully vegan. I feel like my upcoming trips may be nudging me this way. Or it might be autumn. Or it might just be missing cheese. But I’ve been thinking this for a while and every time I think I’ll add some cheese (or something else), I don’t, so maybe I won’t end up pivoting.
On Tuesday, Chris made a lovely Japanese meal.
There was rice with diced vegetables, cooked all together in the rice cooker with seasonings (takikomi gohan), boiled tofu (yudofu) with two different spicy toppings, a dashi-based dip, simmered aubergine (nasu nibitashi) and blanched green beans in a sesame dressing (gomaae).
On Thursday we went out for dinner and yesterday I had the Meatless Farm Pepperoni Pizza, which is really good (and very spicy). Today, I think I’ll probably make my spicy tomato and tofu noodles.
For anyone subscribed to The Illustrated Plant Kitchen, you’ll have noticed I have not posted there in a while. I feel like, at the moment, at least, I have exhausted my own plant-based recipes and very rarely have new ones. I may still post new recipes there now and then, especially if I fall into a new experimental cooking phase, but currently I seem to be mostly making the same things on repeat and also eating what other people (mostly Chris; occasionally a chef in a restaurant or bar) cook for me, so I have nothing new.
This last section is for general other stuff - things you might talk about over a cuppa at the kitchen table.
I feel like mostly I have been thinking about what I’m working on, what I’m drawing and what I’m reading or watching. I have been thinking a bit about my mum and her very probable neurodivergence. I think quite a lot about whether I would get a diagnosis if I tried, and whether there is any point to it. I also think a lot about whether my neurodivergent traits are actually mine or are learned behaviours from having a mother with them. And whether I have passed any on to my own children and, again, if so, whether genetically or through learned behaviour. And if they are learnt behaviours, would therapy or other kinds of brain training train me (and others) out of those behaviours or traits. And I would want to if they could.
I have no answers. I may never have them. But it’s interesting to think and read about it all, anyway.
Ah! The other thing, of course, that I have been thinking about, is going off on my travels next month (and then again two months later!). I have booked a flat in Strasbourg. I need to book an overnight hotel stay in Brussels, too. And I still need to book seats to and from London and my Strasbourg to Paris TGV. I will try to get that done today. Other trips while I’m there I will decide on, on the day (or the night before), I think. I definitely want to go to Mulhouse. I think I will also want to go to Nancy, Lausanne and Basel. Next week, if I do any more research (which I probably will), I will take a look at museums and areas of Strasbourg that I would like to see while there. And maybe I will look up places to eat or buy food. I will have cooking facilities so probably won’t eat out a huge amount, but I do like to do some eating out, even if just a lunch here and there. And I will see if there is anywhere I’d particularly like to eat for an evening meal. I do have very fond recollections of the evening meal I had in a local restaurant in Ferrara during my interrailing trip in 2023. I should also look to see if there are live music places I might want to go to.
I hope you enjoy this weekly roundup format. I will still be writing some ‘proper’ posts on individual topics, but I enjoy reading these and it will keep me regularly showing up in your inbox (it has a section of its own, though, so you can untoggle it if you prefer, by going to Manage subscription).
Indeed, it's a shame no one is patient enough with us to wait that long... I am looking forward to getting back to some festive illustrations I started on last December, and seeing them with fresh (though older) eyes.
I'm just interrupting you (that's obviously the wrong word because you weren't interrupted by me while you were typing this, but I can't think what the right word might be... Is there even a word for replying to someone before you've finished reading their newsletter?) at the giant cat houses. It's fantastic and beautiful! I think the dreamy evanescence of the trees and background both compliment and offset the bright, colourful houses. I suppose it depends on what effect you're aiming for... I see something both surreal and friendly, comforting and almost eerie. I think it's something that both children and grownups might want on their bedroom wall.